Jodi Kantor

So one of my best friends was and is named, we called him Frankie for the new book, is dedicated to him, uh, his byline is Franklin for, and he was like my first friend who really understood journalism.

And senior year he said, "We're too cool to do our work in the Columbia library.

We're gonna take the subway down to the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and work in the main reading room." So that's what we did.

And that Hanukkah we were exchanging gifts, and I got him what I thought was the perfect gift because he loved The New Yorker.

And so I went into the little gift shop at the New York Public Library, and I got him, you know like those posters that are New Yorker covers blown up? I got him one.

Which one?

I can't remember, but what I do remember is that when I gave it to him his face fell, and he said, "Jodi, I don't wanna hang a New Yorker cover on my wall.

I wanna write for The New Yorker." And I was like, "You're crazy.

Like, who talks like that? How do you think that such a thing could be possible?" So that's kind of where he was at and where I was at.

And part of the reason I dedicated this book to him is that he changed my thinking and made me see more in myself.

But I'll tell you another story which is that w-when I was a senior I was kicked off the Columbia Daily Spectator.

I had like a fledgling little column in the Spectator.

This was the part of me that did wanna be a journalist.

Debbie, to say that it was not good is an understatement.

[laughs]

Like truly.

But it still didn't warrant, uh, what happened next, which is that one day I open the paper with like no warning, and there's this column by this other student attacking me, and attacking me in such an out of bounds, crazy, ugly way that I literally cannot say on this show what this kid said about me, 'cause it was so offensive.

It was humiliating.

A-and also, the Spectator, not only did they publish this bananas thing, but they touted it.

Like on the front page they said, "Turn to page three to read an attack on a student." So I was mortified, felt like, you know, everyone's looking at me, but also curious.

I was like, eh, this guy's in my class, how could he have written this? So I walked up to him and I asked him politely, "Why'd you write this?" And he didn't answer.

So then I called him and I left messages saying, "I just really wanna understand why you wrote this," and he didn't answer.

And the next thing I know, I got a phone call from the editor of the Spectator who said that this other guy was accusing me of harassing him, and that we were both kicked off the paper.

Later, like M-Megan Twohey, my partner on the Weinstein story, she thinks this story is hilarious, because she's like, "Jodi, you were fired from a newspaper for asking too many questions." But it was very painful, and also it made me hate journalism.

Like I, I didn't-- I was like this is the most chaotic, unfair, uncivilized, insulting thing I've ever seen.